Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge discussion

This thread is for dropping ideas, questions, resources, comments, and discussion about Task 14: Read a Book That is By an Author from Southeast Asia.

A few resources to get you started -- you might need to do a little more digging to identify the authors and not just the setting:

http://bookriot.com/2015/05/15/recent...

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

I am planing to read Wave Sonali Deraniyagala.

I'm going with The Garden of Evening Mists.

I plan on reading Smaller and Smaller Circles. The Author is from and the story are set in the Philippines.

I plan on reading . Oops! I misread the challenge...need to find an author from Southeast Asia.

Ok. I plan on reading (Vietnamese) or (Malaysian).

I plan on reading Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai for this task.

I have both The Ghost Bride and The Garden of Evening Mists so will choose one of these. I read The Gift of Rain and loved it, so Garden of Evening Mists is the likely book I'll read.

I enjoyed two books by Tash Aw in the past and can recommend him as an author from Southeast Asia.

I'm planning on reading Pioneer Girl, which I put on my to-read list back in February. Although Listen, Slowly probably *should* be on my list.

I will go with The Garden of Evening Mists also.

so i notice from the Bookriot link, A Three Body Problem is mentioned under east Asian, so my question is whether China falls under east our south east asian or are we flexible here?

I will use either Beauty is a Wound (Indonesia) or In the Country: Stories (Philippines).

Bea wrote: "I'm going with The Garden of Evening Mists."

Yes me too on this one, I have had it highly reccomended

I will either read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers or In the Shadow of the Banyan.

Jeni wrote: "I plan on reading Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai for this task."

I loved that book! Read it earlier this year.

Tatiana wrote: "I will either read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers or In the Shadow of the Banyan."

First They Killed My Father is on my list, as well.

Leslie Ann wrote: "I will use either Beauty is a Wound (Indonesia) or In the Country: Stories (Philippines)."

Beauty is a Wound was a Best Fiction finalist for staff at Powells Bookstore. I'll read it if I can get it.

My boyfriend and I are 100% going to read The Ghost Bride. Hopefully we don't get to that book at the same time. :P

Tatiana wrote: "I will either read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers or In the Shadow of the Banyan."

Those are my top two, as well. I am also considering She Weeps Each Time You're Born

I think I am going to go with Stealing Buddha's Dinner, but it turns out I have several options on my shelves. I really need to catalog my stacks!

There's not a single author from this area that I've even heard of, so any choice here will be a shot in the dark and certainly a new experience for me. I'm planning to go with This Earth of Mankind by the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

I have The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng on my TBR list, so that's going here.

Kate wrote: "Tatiana wrote: "I will either read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers or In the Shadow of the Banyan."

Those are my top two, as well. I am al..."

If you like magical realism, I *strongly* recommend She Weeps Each Time You're Born. I kind of want to read it again, but I think I'll stick to the spirit of the challenge and read something new. And maybe also read it again because it's beautiful.

This one looked really good: Of Bees and Mist.

A two-fer! A Singaporean author AND a food memoir : A Tiger in the Kitchen .

Thinking of doing After They Killed Our Father: A Refugee from the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind or Before Ever After (Philippines).

I want to read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... but I'm not sure if the author counts. This is from Wikipedia "Arlene J. Chai is a Filipino-Chinese-Australian author. Chai is Filipino by birth, Chinese by ethnicity and migrated to Australia with her parents and sisters in 1982 because of the political upheaval" Does she count?

I would definitely recommend Sightseeing. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and so many of the short stories rang true to the experiences and life situations of the people in my community and the descriptions are so spot on for the settings.

While skimming the library catalog I found a book called Poems from Captured Documents: Bilingual that sounded really interesting. "These poems were written in journals and notebooks by ordinary soldiers who fought against American forces in Vietnam." I'd been looking for a novel (and still can), but this sounds fascinating to me.

Set in Southeast Asia
Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition -by Nisid Hajari
The Sympathizer - by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora
by Andrew Lam

I'm going to read Panggil Aku Kartini Saja by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I'm Indonesian so I will read this book in my native language.

I'm reading When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip.

Brittany wrote: "I'm reading When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip."

A movie was made from this book (Heaven and Earth) and I really liked it at the time it was released: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107096/

Just finished the first Inspector Singh mystery that was recommended by BookRiot. Really enjoyed it. Up at 4 am to read as I think I set my 2016 reading goal too high!

Holly wrote: "I have The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng on my TBR list, so that's going here."

Trudie wrote: "Bea wrote: "I'm going with The Garden of Evening Mists."

Yes me too on this one, I have had it highly reccomended"

Bea wrote: "I'm going with The Garden of Evening Mists."

You guys are in for a treat, absolutely adore Tan Twan Eng!

So I'm also planning on reading The Ghost Bride, but am also looking at some of Duong Thu Huong's work.
I can also recommend J Damask's work. I read Heart of Fire last year as part of a judging panel and really enjoyed it.

I've chosen The Boat, a collection of short stories from Vietnamese born Australian author Nam Le

I'm going to read Toer's This Earth of Mankind. I'm teaching a class on prison literature this upcoming summer and have been meaning to get into the Buru Quartet, so this task will be good motivation for me.

I'm going with Mān by Kim Thúy. It was recommended highly on the All The Books! podcast.

Is India considered Southeast Asia? I didn't think so but I saw a lot books about India in goodreads list: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

And even books about Japan! (Seriously?)

So, can I read book about India in this task?

Myra, this task is for an author from Southeast Asia, not the setting.

According to Wikipedia, southeast asia consists of:
"1. Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, and Christmas Island.
2. Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, and West Malaysia."

thanks. allmost missed the point with this task. but the problem stays. there are a lot of authors from india or japan in that list. need to think about that. i'll probably read writers from wiki list countrys.

Myra wrote: "thanks. allmost missed the point with this task. but the problem stays. there are a lot of authors from india or japan in that list. need to think about that. i'll probably read writers from wiki l..."

I think the key is SE Asia, not South Asia or East Asia. :)

I'm planning on reading Smaller and Smaller Circles for this one.

I read The Rice Mother. The author is from Malaysia.

Very compelling, but seriously flawed novels that follows a Ceylonese-Malaysian family through much of the 20th century.

Can anyone recommend a book from this area that is not about the horrors of war? I know that is the recent history of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, plus this area was affected by WWII, but when I looked up the books above, I kept seeing words like "brutal".

Robin wrote: "Can anyone recommend a book from this area that is not about the horrors of war? I know that is the recent history of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, plus this area was affected by WWII, but when I lo..."

Smaller and Smaller Circles takes place in the Philippines and its authour is from the Philippines as well. Thriller/Mystery novel

I'm going to borrow The Garden of Evening Mists from my daughter to read for this strand.

I'm gonna read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers and probably cry a lot.

Dhruv wrote: "I'm gonna read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers and probably cry a lot."
That book is so good.

Kathleen wrote: "Dhruv wrote: "I'm gonna read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers and probably cry a lot."
That book is so good."

Looking forward to it!